Generating distributed word embeddings using structured information

ABSTRACT

A computer program that uses structured information, such as syntactic and semantic information, as context for representing words and/or phrases as vectors, by performing the following steps: (i) receiving a first set of natural language text and a set of information pertaining to the first set of natural language text, where the information includes metadata and corresponding contextual information indicating a relationship between the metadata and the first set of natural language text; and (ii) generating a first vector representation for the first set of natural language text utilizing the metadata and its corresponding contextual information.

BACKGROUND

The present invention relates generally to the field of natural languageprocessing, and more particularly to learning word embeddings fordetermining similarity between words and phrases.

Natural language processing (NLP) is a field of computer science,artificial intelligence, and linguistics that, amongst other things, isconcerned with using computers to derive meaning from natural languagetext. NLP systems may perform many different tasks, including, but notlimited to, determining the similarity between certain words and/orphrases. One known way to determine the similarity between words and/orphrases is to compare their respective word embeddings. A word embeddingis a mapping of natural language text to a vector of real numbers in acontinuous space (and is also sometimes referred to as a “vectorrepresentation”). Generally speaking, the word embeddings of similarwords are located close to each other in the continuous space.

SUMMARY

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is a method,computer program product and/or system that performs the following steps(not necessarily in the following order): (i) receiving a first set ofnatural language text and a set information pertaining to the first setof natural language text, where the information includes metadata andcorresponding contextual information indicating a relationship betweenthe metadata and the first set of natural language text; and (ii)generating a first vector representation for the first set of naturallanguage text utilizing the metadata and its corresponding contextualinformation.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram view of a first embodiment of a systemaccording to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a first embodiment method performed, atleast in part, by the first embodiment system;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a machine logic (for example,software) portion of the first embodiment system;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of a systemaccording to the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing information that is helpful in understandingstructured information according to the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a tree diagram showing a dependency parse tree that is helpfulin understanding syntactic information according to the presentinvention; and

FIG. 7 is a table that is helpful in understanding context featuresaccording to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In natural language processing (NLP), it can be helpful to representnatural language text as vectors in order to determine similarity bycomparing vector representations in a continuous space. However,representing words and phrases as vectors (also referred to as “wordembedding”) can be a difficult task, with each known method having itsown drawbacks. Embodiments of the present invention use structuredinformation, such as syntactic and semantic information, as context forrepresenting words and/or phrases as vectors, while prior art methodsonly include using adjacent words (and not structured information) tocreate word embeddings. This Detailed Description section is dividedinto the following sub-sections: (i) The Hardware and SoftwareEnvironment; (ii) Example Embodiment; (iii) Further Comments and/orEmbodiments; and (iv) Definitions.

I. The Hardware and Software Environment

The present invention may be a system, a method, and/or a computerprogram product. The computer program product may include a computerreadable storage medium (or media) having computer readable programinstructions thereon for causing a processor to carry out aspects of thepresent invention.

The computer readable storage medium can be a tangible device that canretain and store instructions for use by an instruction executiondevice. The computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but isnot limited to, an electronic storage device, a magnetic storage device,an optical storage device, an electromagnetic storage device, asemiconductor storage device, or any suitable combination of theforegoing. A non-exhaustive list of more specific examples of thecomputer readable storage medium includes the following: a portablecomputer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), aread-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROMor Flash memory), a static random access memory (SRAM), a portablecompact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), a digital versatile disk (DVD),a memory stick, a floppy disk, a mechanically encoded device such aspunch-cards or raised structures in a groove having instructionsrecorded thereon, and any suitable combination of the foregoing. Acomputer readable storage medium, as used herein, is not to be construedas being transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freelypropagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagatingthrough a waveguide or other transmission media (e.g., light pulsespassing through a fiber-optic cable), or electrical signals transmittedthrough a wire.

Computer readable program instructions described herein can bedownloaded to respective computing/processing devices from a computerreadable storage medium or to an external computer or external storagedevice via a network, for example, the Internet, a local area network, awide area network and/or a wireless network. The network may comprisecopper transmission cables, optical transmission fibers, wirelesstransmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/oredge servers. A network adapter card or network interface in eachcomputing/processing device receives computer readable programinstructions from the network and forwards the computer readable programinstructions for storage in a computer readable storage medium withinthe respective computing/processing device.

Computer readable program instructions for carrying out operations ofthe present invention may be assembler instructions,instruction-set-architecture (ISA) instructions, machine instructions,machine dependent instructions, microcode, firmware instructions,state-setting data, or either source code or object code written in anycombination of one or more programming languages, including an objectoriented programming language such as Smalltalk, C++ or the like, andconventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C”programming language or similar programming languages. The computerreadable program instructions may execute entirely on the user'scomputer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone softwarepackage, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computeror entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario,the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through anytype of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide areanetwork (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer(for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).In some embodiments, electronic circuitry including, for example,programmable logic circuitry, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), orprogrammable logic arrays (PLA) may execute the computer readableprogram instructions by utilizing state information of the computerreadable program instructions to personalize the electronic circuitry,in order to perform aspects of the present invention.

Aspects of the present invention are described herein with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer readable program instructions.

These computer readable program instructions may be provided to aprocessor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, orother programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, suchthat the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computeror other programmable data processing apparatus, create means forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. These computer readable program instructionsmay also be stored in a computer readable storage medium that can directa computer, a programmable data processing apparatus, and/or otherdevices to function in a particular manner, such that the computerreadable storage medium having instructions stored therein comprises anarticle of manufacture including instructions which implement aspects ofthe function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram blockor blocks.

The computer readable program instructions may also be loaded onto acomputer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other deviceto cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer,other programmable apparatus or other device to produce a computerimplemented process, such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer, other programmable apparatus, or other device implement thefunctions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block orblocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods, and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof instructions, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). In some alternativeimplementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of theorder noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in successionmay, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks maysometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon thefunctionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of theblock diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocksin the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implementedby special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specifiedfunctions or acts or carry out combinations of special purpose hardwareand computer instructions.

An embodiment of a possible hardware and software environment forsoftware and/or methods according to the present invention will now bedescribed in detail with reference to the Figures. FIG. 1 is afunctional block diagram illustrating various portions of networkedcomputers system 100, including: word embedding sub-system 102; wordembedding sub-systems 104, 106, 108, 110, 112; communication network114; word embedding computer 200; communication unit 202; processor set204; input/output (I/O) interface set 206; memory device 208; persistentstorage device 210; display device 212; external device set 214; randomaccess memory (RAM) devices 230; cache memory device 232; and program300.

Sub-system 102 is, in many respects, representative of the variouscomputer sub-system(s) in the present invention (including, for example,sub-systems 104, 106, 108, 110 and 112). Accordingly, several portionsof sub-system 102 will now be discussed in the following paragraphs.

Sub-system 102 may be a laptop computer, tablet computer, netbookcomputer, personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, a personal digitalassistant (PDA), a smart phone, or any programmable electronic devicecapable of communicating with the client sub-systems via network 114.Program 300 is a collection of machine readable instructions and/or datathat is used to create, manage and control certain software functionsthat will be discussed in detail, below, in the Example Embodimentsub-section of this Detailed Description section.

Sub-system 102 is capable of communicating with other computersub-systems via network 114. Network 114 can be, for example, a localarea network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN) such as the Internet, or acombination of the two, and can include wired, wireless, or fiber opticconnections. In general, network 114 can be any combination ofconnections and protocols that will support communications betweenserver and client sub-systems.

Sub-system 102 is shown as a block diagram with many double arrows.These double arrows (no separate reference numerals) represent acommunications fabric, which provides communications between variouscomponents of sub-system 102. This communications fabric can beimplemented with any architecture designed for passing data and/orcontrol information between processors (such as microprocessors,communications and network processors, etc.), system memory, peripheraldevices, and any other hardware components within a system. For example,the communications fabric can be implemented, at least in part, with oneor more buses.

Memory 208 and persistent storage 210 are computer-readable storagemedia. In general, memory 208 can include any suitable volatile ornon-volatile computer-readable storage media. It is further noted that,now and/or in the near future: (i) external device(s) 214 may be able tosupply, some or all, memory for sub-system 102; and/or (ii) devicesexternal to sub-system 102 may be able to provide memory for sub-system102.

Program 300 is stored in persistent storage 210 for access and/orexecution by one or more of the respective computer processors 204,usually through one or more memories of memory 208. Persistent storage210: (i) is at least more persistent than a signal in transit; (ii)stores the program (including its soft logic and/or data), on a tangiblemedium (such as magnetic or optical domains); and (iii) is substantiallyless persistent than permanent storage. Alternatively, data storage maybe more persistent and/or permanent than the type of storage provided bypersistent storage 210.

Program 300 may include both machine readable and performableinstructions and/or substantive data (that is, the type of data storedin a database). In this particular embodiment, persistent storage 210includes a magnetic hard disk drive. To name some possible variations,persistent storage 210 may include a solid state hard drive, asemiconductor storage device, read-only memory (ROM), erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EPROM), flash memory, or any othercomputer-readable storage media that is capable of storing programinstructions or digital information.

The media used by persistent storage 210 may also be removable. Forexample, a removable hard drive may be used for persistent storage 210.Other examples include optical and magnetic disks, thumb drives, andsmart cards that are inserted into a drive for transfer onto anothercomputer-readable storage medium that is also part of persistent storage210.

Communications unit 202, in these examples, provides for communicationswith other data processing systems or devices external to sub-system102. In these examples, communications unit 202 includes one or morenetwork interface cards. Communications unit 202 may providecommunications through the use of either or both physical and wirelesscommunications links. Any software modules discussed herein may bedownloaded to a persistent storage device (such as persistent storagedevice 210) through a communications unit (such as communications unit202).

I/O interface set 206 allows for input and output of data with otherdevices that may be connected locally in data communication with wordembedding computer 200. For example, I/O interface set 206 provides aconnection to external device set 214. External device set 214 willtypically include devices such as a keyboard, keypad, a touch screen,and/or some other suitable input device. External device set 214 canalso include portable computer-readable storage media such as, forexample, thumb drives, portable optical or magnetic disks, and memorycards. Software and data used to practice embodiments of the presentinvention, for example, program 300, can be stored on such portablecomputer-readable storage media. In these embodiments the relevantsoftware may (or may not) be loaded, in whole or in part, ontopersistent storage device 210 via I/O interface set 206. I/O interfaceset 206 also connects in data communication with display device 212.

Display device 212 provides a mechanism to display data to a user andmay be, for example, a computer monitor or a smart phone display screen.

The programs described herein are identified based upon the applicationfor which they are implemented in a specific embodiment of theinvention. However, it should be appreciated that any particular programnomenclature herein is used merely for convenience, and thus theinvention should not be limited to use solely in any specificapplication identified and/or implied by such nomenclature.

The descriptions of the various embodiments of the present inventionhave been presented for purposes of illustration, but are not intendedto be exhaustive or limited to the embodiments disclosed. Manymodifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skillin the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the describedembodiments. The terminology used herein was chosen to best explain theprinciples of the embodiments, the practical application or technicalimprovement over technologies found in the marketplace, or to enableothers of ordinary skill in the art to understand the embodimentsdisclosed herein.

II. Example Embodiment

FIG. 2 shows flowchart 250 depicting a method (sometimes also referredto as method 250) according to the present invention. FIG. 3 showsprogram 300 for performing at least some of the method steps offlowchart 250. This method and associated software will now bediscussed, over the course of the following paragraphs, with extensivereference to FIG. 2 (for the method step blocks) and FIG. 3 (for thesoftware blocks). It should be noted that the current example embodiment(also referred to in this sub-section as the “present embodiment,” the“present example,” the “present example embodiment,” and the like) isused herein for example purposes, in order to help depict the scope ofthe present invention. As such, other embodiments (such as embodimentsdiscussed in the Further Comments and/or Embodiments sub-section, below)may be configured in different ways or refer to other features,advantages, and/or characteristics not fully discussed in thissub-section. Furthermore, although program 300 is depicted as residingin persistent storage 210 on word embedding computer 200 of wordembedding sub-system 102 (see FIG. 1), it should be understood that inother embodiments, all or part of program 300 may reside inword-embedding sub-systems 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, or elsewhere.

One way to determine similarity between words and/or phrases in anatural language processing (NLP) system is to compare vectorrepresentations of those words and/or phrases. As stated above,embodiments of the present invention (including the present exampleembodiment) generate vector representations for natural language textusing metadata and contextual information (where the combination ofmetadata and contextual information is sometimes referred to as“structure information” and the combination of structure information andnatural language text is sometimes referred to as “structuredinformation”).

Processing begins at step S255, where input/output (“I/O”) module(“mod”) 405 receives a first set of natural language text. The receivedfirst set of natural language text is the text for which method 250 willgenerate vector representations (or “word embeddings”). Generallyspeaking, the set of natural language text may include any naturallanguage text that is capable of being represented by a vector. In someembodiments, the set of natural language text includes a single word orphrase. In other embodiments, the set of natural language includes anentire document (such as an article or a book). In still otherembodiments, the set of natural language text includes a largecollection of documents and/or other textual content, including, but notlimited to, the entire collection of data available via the World WideWeb. In the present example embodiment, which will be discussedthroughout this sub-section, the set of natural language text is asingle sentence of text: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

Processing proceeds to step S260, where I/O mod 305 receives a set offirst information pertaining to the first set of natural language text,where the first information includes structure information (and wherethe first information combined with the first set of natural languagetext is considered “structured information”). In many embodiments(including the present example embodiment), the first information (thatis, the structure information) includes metadata and correspondingcontextual information indicating a relationship between the metadataand the first set of natural language text. However, that is not alwaysthe case. As used herein, structure information is any information thatincludes metadata for the first set of natural language text (for adefinition of “metadata,” see the Definitions sub-section of thisDetailed Description).

In the present example embodiment, the metadata includes words that aresynonyms of some of the words in the received first set of naturallanguage text, and the corresponding contextual information indicatesthat the words in the metadata are, in fact, synonyms of the respectivewords in the first set of natural language text. More specifically, thefirst information in the present example embodiment includes metadataand contextual information for the following words in the received firstset of natural language text:

Metadata and Contextual Information Received by Mod 305 Original WordMetadata Contextual Information quick fast synonym jumps leaps synonymlazy passive synonym fox canine synonym dog canine synonym

In certain embodiments, the contextual information corresponding to themetadata indicates a syntactic relationship between the metadata and thefirst set of natural language text. A syntactic relationship is anyrelationship relating to the structure of natural language phrases andsentences (for a Definition of “syntactic,” see the Definitionssub-section of this Detailed Description). In one embodiment, thecontextual information includes a constituent parse tree, where the treestructure is the contextual information, and parts of speech (forexample—nouns and verbs) are the metadata. In another embodiment, thecontextual information includes a dependency parse tree, where (again)the tree structure itself serves as the contextual information, and theparts of speech (located in the tree “nodes”) are the metadata. For adiscussion of an example dependency parse tree according to anembodiment of the present invention, see the discussion of FIG. 6 in theFurther Comments and/or Embodiments sub-section of this DetailedDescription, below.

In certain embodiments, the contextual information corresponding to themetadata indicates a semantic relationship between the metadata and thefirst set of natural language text. A semantic relationship is anyrelationship relating to the meaning of natural language text (for adefinition of “semantic,” see the Definitions sub-section of thisDetailed Description). In some embodiments, the metadata includes anamed entity type of at least a portion of the first set of naturallanguage text. For example, in one embodiment, the metadata includes theword “Person”, which is a named entity type (with contextual informationof “named entity type”) of the words “computer programmer.” In anotherembodiment, the metadata includes the word “Place”, which is a namedentity type (with contextual information of “named entity type”) of theword “Paris,” for example. In other (or the same) embodiments, themetadata may include other types of semantic information. For example,as discussed above, in the present example embodiment, the metadataincludes synonyms of some of the words included in the first set ofnatural language text (where the corresponding contextual informationindicates that the words are, in fact, synonyms).

Processing proceeds to step S265, where text substitution mod 310determines one or more substitute set(s) of natural language text based,at least in part, on the metadata and its corresponding contextualinformation. In some embodiments, the substitute sets of naturallanguage text do not include the first set of natural language text (orportions thereof). For an example of one of these embodiments, see thediscussion of FIGS. 6 and 7, below (in the Further Comments and/orEmbodiments sub-section of this Detailed Description). In the examplediscussed below in relation to FIGS. 6 and 7, the words in the first setof natural language text (see column 702 in table 700) are replaced bycompletely new substitute text (“context features”, see column 704 intable 700). However, this is not always the case. In some embodiments(including the present example embodiment), the substitute set(s) ofnatural language text include the first set of natural language text (orportions thereof). Specifically, in the present example embodiment, thefollowing substitute sets of natural language text are generated:

Substitute Text Determined By Text Substitution Mod 310 Original TextSubstitute Text quick quick[synonym = fast] jumps jumps[synonym = leaps]lazy lazy[synonym = passive] fox fox[synonym = canine] dog dog[synonym =canine]

Processing proceeds to step S270, where word embedding mod 315 generatesone or more vector representations for the first set of natural languagetext utilizing the substitute set(s) of natural language text (that is,utilizing the metadata and its corresponding contextual information).Many known (or yet to be known) methods for generating vectorrepresentations from natural language text may be used. For example, insome embodiments, an artificial neural network, trained to generatevector representations (that is, word embeddings) generates the vectorrepresentation(s). Additionally, the vector representations may includevectors of varying sizes and complexities. For example, in someembodiments, the substitute sets of natural language text arerepresented by 2-dimension vectors. In other embodiments, the substitutesets of natural language text are represented by 100-dimension vectors.In still other embodiments, even thousands of dimensions (or more) maybe used to represent the substitute sets of natural language text in acontinuous vector space. In the present example embodiment, thefollowing vectors are generated using a vector-generating algorithm(which will not be set forth in detail, but results in 2-dimensionvectors with scalar values that are rounded to the nearest hundredth):

2-Dimensional Vectors Generated by Word Embedding Mod 315 SubstituteText Vector Represention quick[synonym = fast]  [12.00, 40.23]jumps[synonym = leaps]    [1200, 5436.12] lazy[synonym = passive] [12.12, 60.78] fox[synonym = canine] [745.12, 92.31] dog[synonym =canine] [742.48, 91.64]

In some embodiments, it may be desirable to generate vectorrepresentations for multiple words or groups of words in the first setof natural language text. It should be noted that vector representationsmay be generated, for example, by adding vector representationscorresponding to subsets of the larger set of natural language text tobe represented. For example, in one embodiment, generating a firstvector representation for the first set of natural language textincludes: (i) generating a first initial vector representation from afirst subset of natural language text; (ii) generating a second initialvector representation from a second subset of natural language text; and(iii) adding the first initial vector representation and the secondinitial vector representation to generate the first vectorrepresentation. In another embodiment, a first vector representation forthe first set of natural language text includes adding vectorscorresponding to the original set of natural language text and thesubstitute set of natural language text. In this embodiment, generatingthe first vector representation for the first set of natural languagetext includes: (i) generating a first initial vector representation fromthe first set of natural language text; (ii) generating a second initialvector representation from the substitute set of natural language text;and (iii) adding the first initial vector representation and the secondinitial vector representation to generate the first vectorrepresentation.

Processing proceeds to step S275, where compare vectors mod 320determines an amount of similarity between two sets of natural languagetext by comparing their respective vector representations. In someembodiments, the two sets being compared are the received first set ofnatural language text and a second set of natural language text. Inother embodiments (including the present example embodiment), the twosets being compared are subsets of the first set of natural languagetext. Preferably (but not exclusively), the two vectors being comparedare vectors that have both been generated using structure information(such as metadata and corresponding contextual information), but in somecases only one of the compared vectors (such as the vector generated forthe received first set of natural language text) will have benefitedfrom the inclusion of structure information in the vector generationprocess.

Many known (or yet to be known) methods for comparing vectors may beused by mod 320 to determine the amount of similarity. For example, insome embodiments, a cosine similarity measure is used to calculatesimilarity. In other embodiments, for example, subtraction is used tocalculate the difference between corresponding scalar vectorcoordinates, where smaller differences represent similar words. However,this is not meant to be limiting, and the vector representationscompared in step S275 may be compared utilizing a wide variety of known(or yet to be known) methods. Furthermore, the amount of similarity maybe represented in a wide variety of known (or yet to be known) ways,such as by using similarity scores, similarity ratings, or the like.

In the present example embodiment, mod 320 determines the similaritybetween some of the individual words in the first set of naturallanguage text by comparing their respective vector representations. Thesimilarity determining rules for this example will not be set forth indetail, but some general results of the determined similarity are asfollows: (i) the words “fox” and “dog” are determined to be very similar(as they share the same synonym of “canine”); (ii) the words “quick” and“lazy” are determined to be relatively similar, but not nearly assimilar as “fox” and “dog” (as “quick” and “lazy” are both adjectives);and (iii) the word “jumps” is determined not to be particularly similarto “quick”, “lazy”, “fox” and/or “dog”.

III. Further Comments and/or Embodiments

Embodiments of the present invention include a system and method for thegeneration of distributed word embeddings that use structure to providecontext. In certain embodiments, structured information, such assemantics and syntax, including named entities, is used to build acontext for words and/or phrases when representing them as vectors. Thisstructure-aware training is more accurate than existing methods that useadjacent words (or the probability of adjacent words) to build vectorrepresentations.

Some embodiments of the present invention may include one, or more, ofthe following features, characteristics and/or advantages: (i) usingstructure (or “structural”) information (such as dependency parsinginformation, named entity types, and semantic relations) as context inunsupervised learning of word embeddings; (ii) producing word embeddingswith higher quality than general word-based methods; and (iii)generating word embeddings that contain more information than pure wordstrings.

Diagram 400 (see FIG. 4) shows an example of a system (sometimesreferred to as a “second embodiment system”) according to an embodimentof the present invention. In this embodiment, structure information 402and input vocabulary 404 are provided to structure-aware training module406 as input. Structure-aware training module 406 uses the structureinformation as context to generate word embeddings 408 for the inputvocabulary 404, where the word embeddings can be used to compare (ordetermine similarity between) words and/or phrases in a natural languageprocessing (NLP) system. Structure information 402 may include, but isnot limited to: (i) syntactic information, such as constituent parsetrees and dependency parse trees; and/or (ii) semantic information, suchas semantic relations and named entity types. For additional discussionof structure information, syntactic information, and semanticinformation, see: (i) the Example Embodiment sub-section of thisDetailed Description; and (ii) the Definitions sub-section of thisDetailed Description.

Input vocabulary 404 may be any natural language text for which wordembeddings (that is, vector representations) are desired to be created.Or, stated another way, input vocabulary 404 represents the actual wordsand/or phrases for which word embeddings 408 are to be created.

Structure-aware training module 406 may be any computer module adaptedto create word embeddings (such as word embeddings 408) from naturallanguage text (such as input vocabulary 404) and structural orcontextual information pertaining to that text (such as structureinformation 402). In some embodiments, structure-aware training module406 includes an artificial neural network trained to generate wordembeddings from input words and/or phrases. In other embodiments,structure-aware training module 406 includes a Skip-gram-basedarchitecture or another similar training architecture known (or yet tobe known) in the art.

Diagram 500 (see FIG. 5) shows an example of structured informationaccording to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 5, for any givenword and/or phrase (depicted as word 502) in input vocabulary 404, aplurality of structure information-based “contexts” (depicted as context504, context 506, and context 508) may be determined. The contexts mayinclude a wide variety of structure (or “structural”) informationrelating to word 502, including, for example, the syntactic informationand semantic information discussed above. In generating word embedding408, structure-aware training module 406 may use context 504, context506, and/or context 508, by themselves or in any combination.Furthermore, in some embodiments, word 502, context 504, context 506,and context 508 may each include their own pre-existing word embeddings,where the purpose of structure-aware training module 406 (see FIG. 4) isto simply decide whether to use context 504's word embedding, context506's word embedding, or context 508's word embedding (or anycombination thereof) to represent word 502.

Tree diagram 600 (see FIG. 6) shows a parse tree demonstrating syntacticinformation according to the present invention. More specifically, treediagram 600 depicts a dependency parse tree for the following sentence(referred to as the “input sentence”): “In 1921, Einstein received theNobel Prize.” As shown in FIG. 6, the dependency parse tree (whichrepresents syntactic information that may be located, for example, instructure information 402) includes the following nodes pertaining tothe input sentence (where the set of word(s) at each node in the parsetree is depicted with the letter “p” and a number representing itsrespective position in the input sentence): node 602 (“receive_p_18”);node 604 (“in_p_0”); node 606 (“Einstein_p_9”); node 608(“Nobel_prize_p_31”); and node 610 (“1921_p_3”). Tree diagram 600 alsodepicts the following relationships between nodes: node 610 is an object(denoted “objprep”) of the preposition in node 604; node 604 is apreposition (denoted “mod_vprep”) for the verb in node 602; node 606 isa subject (denoted “subj”) for the verb in node 602; and node 608 is anobject (denoted “obj”) of the verb in node 602.

Table 700 (see FIG. 7) shows a table of context features that correspondto the words/phrases in the previously mentioned input sentence (andshown in FIG. 6). As shown in FIG. 7, column 702 depicts words andphrases in the input vocabulary (such as input vocabulary 404), andcolumn 704 depicts context features corresponding to each of those wordsand phrases. As used herein, a context feature is a string of text thatincludes contextual (or structural) information pertaining to a word orphrase. More specifically, the context features in table 700 describethe relationships depicted in tree diagram 600. Specifically: (i) rowR710 includes the word “receive” and the context feature“mod_vprep_in>1921”; (ii) row R720 includes the word “1921” and thecontext feature “mod_vprep_in<receive”; (iii) row R730 includes the word“receive” and the context feature “subj>Einstein”; (iv) row R740includes the word “Einstein” and the context feature “subj<receive”; (v)row R750 includes the word “receive” and the context feature“obj>Nobel_prize”; and (vi) row R760 includes the word “Nobel_prize” andthe context feature “obj<receive”.

In some embodiments of the present invention, the context featuresdepicted in column 704 (see FIG. 7) represent the text to be convertedinto vector representations for the words/phrases in column 702. Or,stated another way, in some embodiments, column 702 (see FIG. 7)represents input vocabulary 404 (see FIG. 4), tree diagram 600 (see FIG.6) represents structure information 402 (see FIG. 4), and column 704(see FIG. 7) represents word embeddings 408 (see FIG. 4). For example,in some of these embodiments, the vector representation for the word“receive” will be created from the context feature “mod_vprep_in>1921.”In other embodiments, the vector representation for the word “receive”will be combined (for example, added) with the vector representation forthe context feature “mod_vprerp_in>1921.” In still other embodiments,the vector representation for the word “receive” includes thecombination (for example, the addition) of the vector representationsfor all of the context features pertaining to the word “receive” (thatis, “mod_vprep_in>1921” from row R710, “subj>Einstein” from row R730,and “obj>Nobel_prize” from row R750).

IV. Definitions

Present invention: should not be taken as an absolute indication thatthe subject matter described by the term “present invention” is coveredby either the claims as they are filed, or by the claims that mayeventually issue after patent prosecution; while the term “presentinvention” is used to help the reader to get a general feel for whichdisclosures herein are believed to potentially be new, thisunderstanding, as indicated by use of the term “present invention,” istentative and provisional and subject to change over the course ofpatent prosecution as relevant information is developed and as theclaims are potentially amended.

Embodiment: see definition of “present invention” above—similar cautionsapply to the term “embodiment.”

and/or: inclusive or; for example, A, B “and/or” C means that at leastone of A or B or C is true and applicable.

Including/include/includes: unless otherwise explicitly noted, means“including but not necessarily limited to.”

Module/Sub-Module: any set of hardware, firmware and/or software thatoperatively works to do some kind of function, without regard to whetherthe module is: (i) in a single local proximity; (ii) distributed over awide area; (iii) in a single proximity within a larger piece of softwarecode; (iv) located within a single piece of software code; (v) locatedin a single storage device, memory or medium; (vi) mechanicallyconnected; (vii) electrically connected; and/or (viii) connected in datacommunication.

Computer: any device with significant data processing and/or machinereadable instruction reading capabilities including, but not limited to:desktop computers, mainframe computers, laptop computers,field-programmable gate array (FPGA) based devices, smart phones,personal digital assistants (PDAs), body-mounted or inserted computers,embedded device style computers, application-specific integrated circuit(ASIC) based devices.

Natural Language: any language used by human beings to communicate witheach other.

Natural Language Processing: any derivation of meaning from naturallanguage performed by a computer.

Metadata: any data pertaining to other data, including, but not limitedto, data describing other data, data providing structural informationpertaining to other data, syntactic data, and/or semantic data.

Syntactic: relating to the structure of natural language phrases andsentences (that is, relating to grammar); some examples of syntacticrelationships include, but are not limited to, constituent relationships(such as those depicted by constituent parse trees), dependencyrelationships (such as those depicted by dependency parse trees), partsof speech (for example, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.), and/orgrammatical tenses.

Semantic: relating to the meaning of natural language text; someexamples of semantic relationships include, but are not limited to,relationships identified using named-entity recognition (for example,named entity types), relationships modeled/represented by semanticnetworks (such as semantic relations), synonyms, antonyms, and/ordefinitions.

1-10. (canceled)
 11. A computer program product comprising a computerreadable storage medium having stored thereon: first programinstructions programmed to receive a first set of natural language textand a set of information pertaining to the first set of natural languagetext, where the information includes metadata and correspondingcontextual information indicating a relationship between the metadataand the first set of natural language text; and second programinstructions programmed to generate a first vector representation forthe first set of natural language text utilizing the metadata and itscorresponding contextual information.
 12. The computer program productof claim 11, wherein the second program instructions programmed togenerate the first vector representation for the first set of naturallanguage text comprise: determining a substitute set of natural languagetext based, at least in part, on the metadata and its correspondingcontextual information; and generating the first vector representationfor the first set of natural language text utilizing the substitute setof natural language text.
 13. The computer program product of claim 11,further comprising: third program instructions programmed to determinean amount of similarity between the first set of natural language textand a second set of natural language text by comparing the first vectorrepresentation for the first set of natural language text to a secondvector representation for the second set of natural language text. 14.The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the contextualinformation corresponding to the metadata indicates a syntacticrelationship between the metadata and the first set of natural languagetext.
 15. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein thecontextual information corresponding to the metadata indicates asemantic relationship between the metadata and the first set of naturallanguage text.
 16. A computer system comprising: a processor(s) set; anda computer readable storage medium; wherein: the processor set isstructured, located, connected and/or programmed to run programinstructions stored on the computer readable storage medium; and theprogram instructions include: first program instructions programmed toreceive a first set of natural language text and a set of informationpertaining to the first set of natural language text, where theinformation includes metadata and corresponding contextual informationindicating a relationship between the metadata and the first set ofnatural language text; and second program instructions programmed togenerate a first vector representation for the first set of naturallanguage text utilizing the metadata and its corresponding contextualinformation.
 17. The computer system of claim 16, wherein the secondprogram instructions programmed to generate the first vectorrepresentation for the first set of natural language text comprise:determining a substitute set of natural language text based, at least inpart, on the metadata and its corresponding contextual information; andgenerating the first vector representation for the first set of naturallanguage text utilizing the substitute set of natural language text. 18.The computer system of claim 16, wherein the program instructionsfurther comprise: third program instructions programmed to determine anamount of similarity between the first set of natural language text anda second set of natural language text by comparing the first vectorrepresentation for the first set of natural language text to a secondvector representation for the second set of natural language text. 19.The computer system of claim 16, wherein the contextual informationcorresponding to the metadata indicates a syntactic relationship betweenthe metadata and the first set of natural language text.
 20. Thecomputer system of claim 16, wherein the contextual informationcorresponding to the metadata indicates a semantic relationship betweenthe metadata and the first set of natural language text.